Guild Wars 2

Warriors aren’t that difficult to kill playing a thief. seriously.

Arganthium.5638:

Sanduskel.1850:

Think we need to tone down the melodrama. certain elements were badly op’d. For the health of the game, Anet is fixing them. Thieves are fine now and will continue to be fine. Relax.

“Fixing”?! Yeah, because we needed more init regen to render half of our builds inviable… And the “stun break” on sword #2 which is the only way to avoid being eviscerated every five seconds by a warrior? Yeah, that needed “fixing” too.

Dont play a victim. they are making improvements too. decent thieves will continue to thrive. everyone gets mashed by warriors but that is getting nerfed too.

Think we need to tone down the melodrama. certain elements were badly op’d. For the health of the game, Anet is fixing them. Thieves are fine now and will continue to be fine. Relax.

LoneWolfie.1852:

swinsk.6410:

Sanduskel.1850:

i kill warriors all the time on my thief. Perhaps you will be next.

All it takes to beat a thief is let him do his stun break on your first stun, skull crack him again while he is standing in his black powder using berserker stance and HB him.

Dead thief.

As pointed out by other people Sanduskel is posting lines that are mostly baits to incite other people to do things that gets infractions. I suggest other people to ignore his posts.

So you are unable to defeat warriors?

Shogun.7401:

I am not getting any motivation in playing thief class anymore.

Everyday i see a post from Anet leads talking about nerfing thief class.

God sake stop nerfing thief class

Some of us appreciate these changes since they open up new options for thieves. It’s not all about lobbying to get or keep the most overpowered skills.

Imagi.4561:

Sanduskel.1850:

I disagree. This community shouted anyone down when the unfairness of permastealth was raised. It cannot think to the good of the game, rather only advocate for its narrow self interests. If I were Anet , I would use this forum’s input only as fact checking. If were up to many in this community the glaring op issues would never be touched.

Can you provide links to these discussions you speak of, where the majority of people contributing were supporting permastealth? At most, I see people tell those complaining about permastealth to “l2p,” but it’s pretty unanimous that it’s a cheap tactic whether you can counter it or not.

Also, which “glaring op issues” are being ignored by the community?

It’s quite humorous to see so many frequent posters suddenly emerge from the woodwork to admit that permastealth is an exploit of mechanics, when only a few months ago they all chanted that its impossible. Indeed, humorous.

Which op issues? The ones nerfed over the last year.

i kill warriors all the time on my thief. Perhaps you will be next.

Ichishi.9613:

Ensign.2189:

JonPeters.5630:

Let’s break down this thief change a bit more so we can dispel any notions that this is going to ruin thieves.

For sPvP, you’re probably ruining thieves with the Shadow Return nerf. Mainhand dagger doesn’t matter in the tank meta, and sword is losing all the tools it needed to not die in a fight. That isn’t saying that this isn’t going to be for the best in the long run, but the class is probably going to be trash tier for several months until you figure out how to make it work.

The initiative changes are pretty blah. Opportunist is a group PvE powerhouse on a generally weak PvE class, but it’s a pretty forgettable trait in PvP; the change you’re making is going to sledgehammer it in PvE and not have much of an effect on PvP. Honestly I’m more annoyed that it continues the trend of poor proc design than any power level concerns (precision is a sub-par stat in your game because you balanced it around procs, then sledgehammered all the procs) and it’s a step backward in fixing that problem in the long run. Cutting the proc chance in half would be a whole lot healthier than this proposal, for what it’s worth.

Most of the other traits hits you decided on feel bad simply because there isn’t a whole lot you can do about them; you’ll still end up taking the traits and feel bad about it. It’s not like I’m going to stop putting 30 points into Critical Strikes because you nerfed Opportunist; it wasn’t a big part of a PvP spec anyway, and the alternative is not being able to kill things. Ripping a bunch of power off of Quick Recovery doesn’t encourage me to experiment with different traits in an Acrobatics build, because nothing else in the line does anything – you’ll just suck it up and run bad Quick Recovery. Kleptomaniac was a nice bonus for investing 30 points into Trickery, now it’s basically garbage unless you put 30 points into Trickery.

…and so forth. Again, it’s not a disagreement with the design direction. I agree with the design intent 100%. It’s more that these changes look, well, like a first pass alpha draft, and I’d hope to see significant refinement of these concepts before they’re pushed to live.

What he said. Was there ever a round table where all the solutions were listed and considered in orderly and constructive manner? If you don’t have enough time I am pretty sure you would at least have some to read a bit of the work that community can do FOR you and BETTER than you. Simply because there is more of us

I disagree. This community shouted anyone down when the unfairness of permastealth was raised. It cannot think to the good of the game, rather only advocate for its narrow self interests. If I were Anet , I would use this forum’s input only as fact checking. If were up to many in this community the glaring op issues would never be touched.

Yeah everyone else, including anet just needs to l2p, lol

Aesthetic Quietus.5346:

The death of d/p build. That build will absolutely get trounced by anything 1v1. its defense was stealth. it was a bit troll like to be able to hide from a zerg..but did that impact balance? seems not a whole hell of a lot different than walking around CnDing to stay in stealth. A shred more skill to land it.

I disagree. Decent thieves will still do fine, but it will require them to take more risk and judgment. These are good changes for the health of the game and the class.

Cynz.9437:

after patch thieves will be the worst

here, i said it

Only for players who are too lazy to do something other than abuse a broken stealth mechanic.

Fadre.2759:

Sanduskel.1850:

Cynz.9437:

i would really love to hear from devs where they see thieves role

they can’t defend points in pvp
they can’t capture them (unless point is empty or very bad players are defending it, but you don’t need to be thief for it…)
they contribute little to group fights
in pve they are overshadowed by warriors/mesmers (mesmers for stealth etc.)
in wvw a ranger can scout as effective except they contribute more to fights

what are thieves for in this game? for roleplaying a ninja?

i think it would really help if devs would set on certain role for thieves and would balance them around that role instead throwing nerfs around just because non-thieves don’t know how to handle stealth

I don’t agree with any of your assertions about what thieves can or can’t do.

because you do not or (or not want to) understand the real problem of thieves.

JonPeters also, because he only want to discuss numerics.

It is not really important to have a little bit better values in init, crit or what ever.

Thieves have no rule in group play (wvwvw and pve) and other classes are favorite to take them in groups (like warrior or necros or mesmer).

Thieves are good (not superior) in 1:1 but they want to nerf it more and more….

That’s your opinion. I do understand the problems, but I don’t think that they are that bad.

Awake.1683:

Darkjoy.3092:

Give TW a break. The are a really skilled guild with some good people. It is just under poor management

I agree. poor management.
TW does have some great players who bring good fights, but most of the razzing is due to the incessant blob humping and (Edit: pathetically timed) emote spamming.

edit#2: got dat keep doe

You sound upset. There, there. Everything will be ok.

Cynz.9437:

i would really love to hear from devs where they see thieves role

they can’t defend points in pvp
they can’t capture them (unless point is empty or very bad players are defending it, but you don’t need to be thief for it…)
they contribute little to group fights
in pve they are overshadowed by warriors/mesmers (mesmers for stealth etc.)
in wvw a ranger can scout as effective except they contribute more to fights

what are thieves for in this game? for roleplaying a ninja?

i think it would really help if devs would set on certain role for thieves and would balance them around that role instead throwing nerfs around just because non-thieves don’t know how to handle stealth

I don’t agree with any of your assertions about what thieves can or can’t do.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Sanduskel.1850:

Anet needs to stick to their guns. The community hasn’t demonstrated the capacity to look to the interest of the entire game.

I highly doubt that ANET thinks the same way you do otherwise they won’t even give their time collaborating with the community. And we all know that even ANET don’t have" the capacity to look to the interest of the entire game" either, otherwise we’ll all be dancing around the campfire singing cumbaya.

For example it has stoutly defended perma stealth, even though the rest of the player base despises that broken mechanic.

The mechanic isn’t broken, people are just too lazy to deal with it. Other games has a real perma-stealth (you can even go AFK while in stealth) but it wasn’t a big problem because of counter measures — and ANET lacks stealth counter measures. The ones we’ve seen so far are all meh.

If anet listened to the community, nothing would have changed.

On the contrary, it was because of the community the changes did happen. :/

Well they used the word, abuse, when referring to perma stealth, so I don’t think that anet agrees with you.

Anet needs to stick to their guns. The community hasn’t demonstrated the capacity to look to the interest of the entire game. For example it has stoutly defended perma stealth, even though the rest of the player base despises that broken mechanic. If anet listened to the community, nothing would have changed.

Vi Au.8341:

With how Anet is currently changing thieves, I have little to no motivation to keep playing. If they decide to “tone” down certain ability, they should at least offer other option and change things up to allow us to discover new builds. but with the upcoming patch i can see none of that and it is making me really sad.

As a thief, I’d say you don’t really understand the changes. There are some good buffs in these notes. Keep up the good work, Jon!

Thieves are not useless unless they scrub it up with a permastealth build. Rangers….I feel sorry for rangers….

I look forward to the challenge. Perhaps people won’t hate us so much once the cheese builds are no longer viable. It willbe nice to be appreciated and valued.

Really appreciate the changes, Jon. My only suggestion is to stick to your guns and let these play out in game for a while. It’s the only sure way to determine the effect.

SoLeciTO.3490:

Sanduskel.1850:

I kill enemies with regen all the time, so I don’t agree with you. This patch only nerf the scrub builds that rely on perma stealth. Perma stealth was an abuse of the mechanics. It’s been fixed. I like these changes.

Sanduskel please stop with permastealth hate.

You are in every single thread talking trash about this build.

If you don’t like it just don’t play it, there are a lot more complains of perma evade than this.

There are a lot of “Thieves” here talking trash of according to them cheesy builds . . . stop already let people to play what ever they want.

Every good build in this game can be considered as cheesy so remember that and stop showing no sense hate everywhere.

I am sorry that you are upset. I just hate all the negativity about a wonderful patch (imho anyway).

Zacchary.6183:

Sanduskel.1850:

I will continue to disagree that removing perma stealth will hurt this class. It was an abuse of a mechanic as stated in the explanation from Mr Peters. Get some perspective for the health of the entire game, not just our class.

First off its my class, not your’s. You havn’t shown me you know enough about this profession yet.

Secondly, I am thinking about the game. Having a class nobody uses more than 5% of the game with is considered a massive waste of programming. If they can’t make this profession enjoyable again they might as well delete it because nobody is going to play a profession that requires more way effort for the same reward.

Pardon me, but you don’t speak for all people who play the thief class. Neither do I. However, others don’t share your negative view. I think it’s hyperbole to state that nobody will play this. Based on what I’ve read, I certainly shall.

Well some of us like and appreciate the changes. perhaps you need to spread your wings and try a few things before dismissing this patch?

Zacchary.6183:

Zanshin.5379:

I’m gonna be so happy when they finally nerf your perma stealth OP class.

Feel free to celebrate right now. The crying minority has effectively killed the profession and can now have their free kills handed to them by said profession.

I really hope this was what you wanted.

I will continue to disagree that removing perma stealth will hurt this class. It was an abuse of a mechanic as stated in the explanation from Mr Peters. Get some perspective for the health of the entire game, not just our class.

Thank you for the clarity. I agree with the direction. A few months down the road, I hope the elimination of perma stealth allows for more changes to improve versatility. I’d let the dust settle on these changes for a good while, however.

So has the BG TS been constantly ddos attacked? Enquiring minds want to know.

Something without perma skills.

I like this suggestion. Or crap shoot or russian roulette!

kanderous.7512:

Really, BG. We’re painting your BL green and you DDOS our TS.

Good work.

this has been going on for months. clkitten.

Agree with Chicago. If you think these changes through, they could open up new possibilities that are impossible right now due to perma etc builds.

ANET – I love the thief changes. HOwever, please consider improving ability to create better non stealth builds by thinking through how we can support groups in wvw. thank you.

Perma anything is bad. Perma stealth, perma evade, perma stun. Glad they are removing those broken mechanics.

fakjuol.5349:

crouze.3078:

Azraelle.1683:

Black Teagan.9215:

Zerbo.5381:

Black Teagan.9215:

Sry, but this is the first patch since the release, where I see not one nerf.

Is this a joke- “Not one nerf”? If not, I think you should go back and read the notes a little more carefully.

Give me an example for “a nerf”

Read the patchnotes. You’ll see it unless you are absolutely kittened.

Thats one of the main problems in this forum … thats not a mature answer to his question.

I listed the obvious buffs and nerfs here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Balance-preview-breakdown-with-feedback/3137949

Nerfs are mainly reduced vigor duration and cast time for swords shadow return on sword.

The reduced initiative gain on traits is not a real nerf since the base regeneration is increased. It just changes that you dont need those traits anymore. they will become useless like the improvisation trait.

you basicaly cant go for perma stealth which is one way of playing thief..Less diversity. Perma stealth thief was no threath because low dmg. Lots of ppl crying because perma stealth has good escape mechanism but thats it..he can run;) Now nerf.. Thief has low hp pool, low armor, now we have evasion nerf – mobility and no more trolling in wvw. Where is the fun in it? Thief after this incoming patch will be good only for dungeons as STEALTH bot for ressing downed players. F******ing r*********ed nerfs.

I disagree. Perma stealth thieves could still hit really hard, which is one reason it was so easy and hated. It really wasn’t a challenge.

Impact.2780:

Stealth is very easy to deal with… Once they are revealed, you know they are there. They cannot stealth again for 3-4 seconds, and when they do they’ve either run away – which a Mesmer can do with stealth while leaving phantasms to deal with (which is why I never understand why everyone moans about thieves and not stealth mesmers); an Elementalist can do with RTL; a Warrior can do with swiftness+sword 2/gs 3+5 (sometimes all 3); a Ranger with their long evades and traps; a Guardian with their knockbacks – or they are still there trying to get a backstab in, or waiting for you to reappear if you’ve also stealthed. So either run around making it hard for them to hit you, or bomb the area with AoE…

So basically thieves are getting stealth nerfed because they are the class that is able to escape while leaving you unsure as to whether they have escaped or are still there… Forget the fact that’s what thieves and deception classes are MEANT to do. Forget about balance; it’s not just taking away their ability to escape without being seen, but also taking away the ability to effectively escape at all. At the end of the day, people don’t like losing. They don’t like feeling robbed of a kill or standing around not knowing what to expect whether that’s part of the game with regard to that class or not. Forget the fact that the escapee HAD to escape from you; forget the fact that you are taking their damage and surviving, and made them run. “Nonono they are OP not me! Don’t nerf my defence/healing, nerf their mobility so I can win!”

Nerf thieves today, the QQ will be on another mobile class tomorrow. Just like it was Elementalist before Thief.

Is no escape and no mobility the ultimate slow but sure aim of the devs for this game? Was it always intended to be Kite&Bunker Wars 2? People will always complain about another class. It doesn’t always justify nerfing it to the ground and taking away other people’s fun. After this patch, unless something changes, the ground will not be far below Thief.

i disagree. Perma stealth ruined the game both for thieves and for others. This will now require that thieves think before they attack. I welcome these changes because it will clear out the abuse of perma stealth perma evades that were never intended.

wigs.9761:

LOL! THIEF – You guys are totally going to kill this class. reducing init. gain? Gonna nerf the thief so that it doesnt evade so much, i think is what i read. Isnt the point of thief to get into battle drop some burst then get out before you get 1skilled. lol! Next your gonna limit are stealth skills and reduce um

I was just starting to learn to play my thief… you guys do realise how hard it is to play a thief, i mean good? evading hitting and hiding is our niche xD

I disagree. I think this will liberate the class from the hated permastealth crutch.

You seem upset. It was a good patch. lot’s of good, a little bad. can’t win them all.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

This cast time on infiltrator strike return is basically the last straw for me as a thief , I’m retiring the class for sure if that change does indeed go through , I see no point in dedicating as much time as I have to a class that is just going to be left with no viable build overtime ( nerfed hard every patch).

I’m not one of those thieves that would stealth forever and wait to prey on people with low health, I go as deep into a fight as my warrior guld mates would and since I can’t possibly tank hits like they do ( as we are a squishy class ) I’ll let you guess what skill allowed me to not just melt when I got CC’ed , feared or immobilized right away…..that’s right an infiltrator return without a cast time.

At least if you’re going to nerf us hard with each and every patch give us something worthwhile back, for example you nerf evade here you give thieves access to protection buffs such as aegis or increase the base toughness or health of the class.

Anyways you truly ought to reconsider these changes because you’re effectively destroying any enjoyment there is to be had with this class by nerfing it to the ground.

Hmm. well, this patch is good for the game because it reduces the easymode perma stealth scrub build simplicity. If you truly were a thief master this patch wouldnt bother you.

Perma stealth was an abuse of mechanics. it needed a shearing.

Highlie.7641:

This is my 6th attempt at this message, all the other ones got deleted in rage and sorrow
i could go on and write another 20 page essay about counters to thieves, vigor, fS and S. return. but it would end up the same way as the last ones.

So ill keep this short. dec 10 is the day the thief dies.
Stand still to win boys, stand still to win…

no. perma stealthers will need to learn to play. I appreciate these changes.

Your D/D didn’t get nerfed, but goodbye.

style.6173:

Sanduskel.1850:

Thieves don’t need 1200 range, sorry. that’s not our role. I love these changes. the scrubs who relied on perma stealth will be purged. good.

All of your messages are the same. Stop complaining about getting pwned. It isn’t productive and makes you look bitter. Seriously, just practice and then you won’t need so many alts.

You seem upset. I am not complaining. I support these changes! Scrub specs ruined this class, and I will be glad to see them gone.

Elrond.9486:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Viking Jorun.5413:

For all intensive purposes

For all intents and purposes.

I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn’t take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It’s clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother’s mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it’s a peach of cake.

Well played.

Thieves don’t have the least survivability. NOt even close.

Gilburt.9146:

JonPeters.5630:

• Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.

This is a decent nerf to Heartseeker + Black Powder, but I think it doesn’t go far enough. You said

JonPeters.5630:

We felt that using a lot of different abilities to maintain stealth is ok, but re-using the same ability over and over for almost permanent stealth was just bad for the game…

however, players will still be able to gain a lot of stealth from this combination from skills alone. Yes, it will cost more, however I don’t think it’s fair that thieves can stack stealth this easily.

What makes the stealth from Cloak and Dagger fair is that you know the Backstab is coming within the next 3-4 seconds. This knowledge allows you to counter it. (Also Cloak and Dagger can be counter with blind, aegis, or an evade) However, against Black Powder + Heartseeker it is impossible to know when that Backstab is coming because the Thief could have stacked up to 9 seconds of stealth.

Please give the stealth gain from Black Powder + Heartseeker a 4 second internal cooldown. This combo is already powerful and well worth the initiative it costs because you can gain stealth from any location. This allows you to lead on your foe with stealth gained at a distance, something Cloak and Dagger can’t do. It will still be very powerful even if thieves can’t stack stealth with it.

If you truly believe thieves should only be able to maintain stealth by using a lot of different abilities, please make this change as well.

nope. the changes are right. don’t go back on this or else we will be right back to permastealth land.

Doggie.3184:

Keep playing Thief to the best of your ability, even if you fail over and over from 1shots and lockdowns. Maybe they’ll show pity and realize how much of a beaten dead horse they are and do something. ;/ I’ll keep on using broken skills and utilities, even though I apparently get them nerfed, but they’re bound to realize something rational eventually.

Maybe I should whip out some trap builds again. Maybe I’ll get needle trap nerfed and make the devs look supicious.

Sanduskel.1850:

I kill enemies with regen all the time, so I don’t agree with you. This patch only nerf the scrub builds that rely on perma stealth. Perma stealth was an abuse of the mechanics. It’s been fixed. I like these changes.

Explain the sword nerfs and making a build that sucks vs conditions suck even more vs conditions.

YOu need to be clearer. I honestly cannot understand what you wrote.

I kill enemies with regen all the time, so I don’t agree with you. This patch only nerf the scrub builds that rely on perma stealth. Perma stealth was an abuse of the mechanics. It’s been fixed. I like these changes.

JohnnyZero.5619:

Why is the Infusion of Shadow change necessary?

Meta sPvP thieves don’t spend a single trait point in Shadow Arts, and I don’t see that changing as long as conquest is our only game mode.

Thieves are hardly a worthy mention in WvW, where heavy armor front liners and heavy hitting AoE back liners steal the spotlight. Thieves only really shine in small encounters, which really don’t affect PPT much.

Perma-stealth builds are annoying to fight, sure, but then so are all classes when specced correctly. I get the feeling that is change is a response to 1v1 complaints in WvW, which is ridiculous.

More and more I regret rolling a stealth-reliant class in this game. I kinda remember an ANET post saying something like boosting Thief base skill damage to make them less reliant on Berserker stats to deal decent damage. Where has that idea gone?

if you can’t contribute in large scale fights, you are doing something wrong. sorry to say that.

Thieves don’t need 1200 range, sorry. that’s not our role. I love these changes. the scrubs who relied on perma stealth will be purged. good.

Ansatsu.2678:

RIP In Peace Thieves.

don’t over react. RIP scrubs who rely on perma stealth. Decent thieves will continue to do well.

Hopefully removing ezmode perma stealth will clear the scrubs out and allow the class to get other help.